Weekend Roundup Volume 37

French language militants turn back the clock 

Writing this story made me think of those religious police in Saudi Arabia and other fundamentalist countries that patrol the streets and arrest women who dare to wear western attire or walk unaccompanied by a man. It is without a doubt a regressive and sad tale of society going backwards.

Both the City of Gatineau and the city of Sherbrooke offered white collar employees a 45¢ an hour bilingual bonus if they were able to communicate in English.  LINK
This outraged language militants who felt that this discriminated against those who spoke only French.
Follow that logic and you can say that employers offering higher starting salaries to university graduates as opposed to those with only a high school graduates also discriminate. Hmm......

City manager of Gatineau outraged

After extreme pressure from the militant French language lobby group Impératif français, the city of Gatineau caved and revoked the bonus. LINK

Even the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF)  is coming down on Gatineau for being altogether too accommodating to its English minority. LINK{FR}

The City manager, Robert Weemaes, was so outraged by the tactics used to poison city council in relation to the bonus, that he wrote a stinging letter to LE DROIT, an Ottawa newspaper. Read it HERE in French.

SAQ under fire for English advertisements.

Of all the government run services, the liquor monolpy does a pretty good job of serving customers in English. In stores in western Montreal, employees are highly bilingual and many Anglos are employed.
One of the things I like is that much of the advertising and literature is available in high-quality English, not the Google inspired icky translations. The catalogues printed in English are clearly written and produced by English speakers. The SAQ website provides a mirror in English.
So of course it comes as no surprise that this irks certain language militants.

A francophone reader complained on the web site of the militant French language group Impératif français, that the SAQ had the temerity to produce a colour brochure in English only and deliver it to his home. LINK

The fact that the brochure was an enclosure, delivered within an English newspaper which is delivered free to the households in the overwhelmingly English neighbourhood of NDG, was of course, beside the point.

Francophones doing just fine in the NHL

Readers might remember the blog piece I wrote entitled NHL Francophone Conspiracy Theory, which discussed Bob Sirois, an ex-NHLer who wrote a book claiming that francophones were consistently discriminated against in the NHL.

That book along with an article written in the same vein by the dean of Quebec's sportswriters, Rejean Tremblay underlines a certain paranoia among a minority of Quebecers who suffer from a unhealthy persecution complex.

You can read the original story by Mr. Tremblay HERE in French.

I mention these past stories in relation to a piece written on a sports website that claims that 10.4% of NHL players are francophone. LINK

Considering that the number of Canadians (including francophones) playing in the NHL is a little over 50%, Francophones make up a little over 20% of that total, completely in line with Canadian demographics.

One place where francophone representation is distorted is in the head coaching job. There are five francophone head coaches in the league out of the thirty positions available, making for an interesting over-representation!

Survey confirms anti-sovereignty trend

A survey conducted by an admittedly fedarlist organization had some interesting statistics.

Perhaps Pauline Marois and all those hardliners who are demanding more public discussion of the independence issue should pay attention to these numbers.

• 77% believe the sovereignty debate should be put aside
• 71% believe that the sovereignty debate is over
• 25% would choose Quebec independence.

There's a lot of other interesting stats which you can find by consulting the complete survey results HERE in French, or a story about the survey in the Montreal Gazette. 

Something in the Gazette article caught my attention, the author MAX HARROLD repeats a common myth that the Canadian Parliament recognized Quebec as a distinct nation. 

"69 per cent believe talks should be started to allow the National Assembly to sign the Constitution; 73 per cent want Quebec formally recognized as a nation in the Constitution (it has already been recognized as such by Parliament);"

The motion put forward by Stephen Harper in November 2006 was this;

"That this House recognizes that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada"

It refers to the people of Quebec, not the province, an important distinction which is lost on most Quebecers as well as journalists. The distinction between the two is clearer in the French version;

"Que cette Chambre reconnaisse que les Québécoises et les Québécois forment une nation au sein d'un Canada uni." LINK

Rich Quebec francophones lag RoC badly

"Per capita, there are far fewer rich people in the French-speaking province than in Ontario. Barely 3.9% of taxpayers earn more than $100,000 a year in Quebec compared to 6.3% in Ontario, according to 2008 revenue department statistics, which are the most recent available. The ranks of the truly monied are even thinner."  Read: Wealth in Quebec: a different view  by  Nicolas Van Praet

Mario Dumont and my favourite Anglo-basher Martin Pelletier (who once proposed a $2,000 fine for speaking English in public- Link) were discussing the lamentable performance of Quebecers on the newly published list of the 100 richest Canadians as published by Canadian Business.

Mr. Pelletier whined that only 15 of the 100 richest Canadians were Quebecers and blamed it on the fact that Quebecers lacked entrepreneurship.

I found his discourse strange as he mentioned Quebecers, not Francophones, and so I checked out the list myself. See the List HERE

 Although Mr. Pelletier mentioned that there were 15 from Quebec, there are actually 16. Charles Bronfman is on the list as a Canadian who lives in New York, but rightfully, if he's on the list, he deserves a Quebec affiliation.

   

What Mr. Pelltier tapped danced around is the fact is that of the sixteen on the list, only seven are Quebecois francophones, making it a lamentable seven out of the one hundred richest Canadians, when demographically we would expect 23.

Incredibly, nine out of the sixteen richest Quebecers are minorities or English.

I'm not even going to get into how many Jews are on the list, lest I trigger another pogrom in Hampstead.

French universities serve up English

I found this advertisement in the Montreal Gazette over a morning cup of coffee. I scanned the ad because it wasn't available online, so please excuse the quality.
It seems that the University of Montreal's elite business shcool, the HEC is offering MBA courses in ENGLISH.

Oh,Oh! What do you think the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste will have to say about that!

By the way, when I googled the HEC MBA program to find a link, the first thing that popped up was this page in English describing the program. While looking over the page I realized that this is the HEC in Paris, France which also offers a completely English MBA program. Whodathunk!

"The program is taught in English but participants also have the option of choosing the bilingual option(French/English). Participants who do not speak French will study the language, and those already billingual [sic] will study a third language; an increasingly prized asset within today’s multicultural business environment." LINK 

Here's the link to the HEC in Montreal describing the English MBA program.





Deputy Mayor upset over French sign
It wouldn't be fair not to report on language intolerance elsewhere in the country so here's a story about a bilingual sign upsetting locals in southeastern Ontario.

"South Stormont Deputy Mayor Tammy Hart is drawing flack and praise for voicing out about new Bilingual signs at St. Lawrence Parks that are appearing; in particular the one in Long Sault Ontario at the Parkway entrance"

Wow, if you think the comments are nasty on this blog, see what readers had to say about the story Here

The Cost of bilingualism 

"The cost of French translation in the capital of Canada’s only officially bilingual province is under scrutiny as councillors question the need for two translators who are paid to provide translation at each city council meeting even though they have only been called on once in eight years."

"In July, citing the need to protect minority-language rights, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Vital Ouellette ordered the territory government to build a $15-million high school to house the board’s 41 French high school students."   LINK

Odds'n Ends  

Here's two items  that will make the  Mouvement Québec français of the  Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste ill. This week the Quebec government announced that it is giving the Jewish General Hospital $300 million for an expansion project.
and to add insult to injury, the Shriners finally broke ground on their new hospital which will be located adjacent to the new English super hospital.

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Here's a French phrase that I came across while skimming my favourite fan hockey site. I hadn't seen it before;
 "… Je vous entends déjà vous poser la question « Ouate de Phoque? »"

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Readers, here's a story that appeared on vigile.net that I actually liked, so I translated it for you.

Let's analyze what this picture means to different groups of people;

• The most informed observers will define this as a woman crossing the street.
• For young men ... it's a nice ass.
• Connoisseurs will notice the g-string ...
• For older men, it is a respectable woman with a nice ass, crossing the street.
• The wicked will imagine her naked
• The wise will consider the presence of mind of the photographer to share this photo with the world.
• For half the women, it is an ordinary girl who shouldn't go out dressed like that.
• The other half are wondering where she bought the outfit.
• Mature women imagine the misery that she will endure when she turns 50 ........

...and finally, 

• only children, pedos and monks will notice that a dog is driving the taxi ... !

 Have a wonderful weekend!